>

>

Article

Media

“ny Badass” Phil Baroni Has Big Week!

Who says MMA fighters don’t get publicity? The big-talking Phil Baroni was back in his home state of New York this weekend doing interviews and photo shoots for Jane Magazine and News 12 of Long Island. The news station will air a segment Tuesday starting with the 5pm broadcast and every hour afterwards until the 10pm airing. Baroni was also seen on the last episode of Oz on Sunday, playing of all things… a prison guard. Look for Phil in the coming months to have a spread in Flex magazine and other major mags. "It’s all about pushing fighters into other markets to get them and our sport noticed," claimed Baroni’s management team. Baroni will be facing Matt Lindland this Friday night in UFC 41 in what many are saying should be the fight of the night!

A Champion Crowned, Two Spots in Vegas Guaranteed, and Plenty of NHB Veterans at K-1’s Brazilian Debut!
By Eduardo Alonso

This Sunday, February 23rd, K-1 officially debuted in Brazil at the Maksud Plaza Hotel in Sao Paulo. A selective crowd mostly composed by VIP guests and members of the participant’s academies witnessed the result of years of effort by promoter Sergio Batarelli in bringing the most important stand up fighting event in the world to Brazil. With two spots at K-1 USA at stake in an 8 men tournament, plus a WKN Muay Thai title fight and an alternate bout on the card, there was plenty of action secured for fighting fans, and K-1 standards were followed in every aspect of the show, once again defining this as an official K-1 event, and the first of many to come in the country.
The show kicked off with a brief explanation of what is K-1 done by Batarelli himself, and the alternate fight soon followed. A veteran of K-1 himself, Pantera Negra came into the alternate fight as heavily favorite over newcomer Michael Bulla, and Pantera did indeed win. However, although he dominated the entire fight he couldn’t put Bulla away for good and ended up getting a judges’ decision in his favor. After this fight the 8 men tournament was about to start featuring the presence of some NHB veterans, such as MECA veteran Carlinhos, IVC Venezuela veteran Jefferson Tank and most importantly UFC and PRIDE veteran Carlos Barreto! Barreto was clearly the most anticipated attraction on the card, due to the fact that he is a Jiu Jitsu stylist and no one knew how we would fair in such an event. The public’s doubts would soon be erased as Barreto’s fight was the first one of the tourney, and him and his opponent, Luis dos Santos, were soon battling inside the K-1 ring. The first round saw Barreto surprisingly dominating the Boxer, working his distance and punishing his legs with several low kicks, however Carlos injured his shin on the process and couldn’t do his game on the second and third rounds, where Luis dos Santos grew in the fight and walked away with a fair Judge’s decision in his favor.

Carlinos vs. Miranda

The brackets continued to unfold with Artur Mariano’s student Eduardo Maiorino facing another Boxer in Laerte Rezende. The fight would end quickly with Maiorino smartly punishing the Boxer with low kicks until he caused a major cut on Laerte’s shin causing the doctor to stop the fight. Next NHB veteran Jefferson Tank, who counted with the biggest group of supporters at the event, and Tae Kwon Do champion Lucio Freitas were responsible for one of the most exciting fights of the event, with Tank punishing Lucio with his hands in the first and second rounds, scoring several knockdowns, just to see the brave Freitas come back using all sorts of kicking combinations and get close to reversing the fight. In the end Tank got a fair judges’ decision and advanced to the semi finals. The last fight of the quarter finals saw MECA veteran Carlinhos score some early knockdowns on Vitor Miranda, who fought back with lots of courage and won the final round of the fight, however Carlinhos was the winner on the scorecards, but Vitor’s effort was good enough to injury the MECA veteran’s ribs and he wouldn’t be able to continue in the competition, allowing Miranda to make a comeback due to K-1’s rules. In the first leg of the semi finals Luis dos Santos entered the ring already damaged by his encounter with Carlos Barreto, and suffered with the quick combinations of punches and low kicks from Eduardo Maiorino, who managed to score some knockdowns with the low kicks at the beginning of the fight that would give him the win on the scorecards, despite Dos Santos’ effort in the last round that almost got him a KO win.
In the last semi final Jefferson Tank entered the favorite over young Vitor Miranda, who came back to replace an injured Carlinhos, however to most of the audience surprise Vitor showed a tremendous heart and used his speed and kicking combinations to overwhelm Tank, using the typical Muay Thai clinch smartly and won the first round of the fight. But Jefferson was a man on a mission, and soon in the second round he unleashed an amazing knee out of the blue and broke Miranda’s jaw on the spot! The referee didn’t see it, but Vitor himself warned the ref and called it quits. So the final was set between Tank and Maiorino, but first the audience would get a taste of the lighter weights with the WKN Brazilian Muay Thai up to 73 kg Championship, in a rematch between Marfio Canoletti and Alexander da Silva, with the winner of the first fight being Marfio. Both guys alternated good moments during the first rounds of the fights, however Marfio’s game seemed more sharp and he scored a knockdown to then later score a second one, from where he kicked the downed opponent who didn’t come back after the ref’s count giving Marfio the knockout win, since the referee understood Marfio’s kick to the downed Alexander wasn’t intentional. So, the only thing left was the final and the chance to represent Brazil in Las Vegas at K-1 USA. Since the champion had a guaranteed spot, and the second representative would come from a wild card, picked by the promoters. Jefferson Tank and Eduardo Maiorino came into the fight already tired from their road to the final, and Tank’s better cardio and bigger aggressiveness earned him the win via judges’ decision, in a fight where he pressed most of the action and was never in danger. However, in the best "happy ending" fashion Maiorino was picked as the wild card fighter to go to Vegas by the promoters, and both guys were all smiles after the fight with their passports ready for K-1 USA on May 2nd, and an unforgettable experience in their minds! K-1 Brazil is going to be aired by DIRECTV to the USA, Japan and Brazil on March 8th of 2003! Don’t miss it as FCF continues to bring you the undefeated fighting coverage in the world.

KOTC Results
By Keith Mills

Schulte eating a fist from Marquez

Albuquerque, NM — King of The Cage made it’s first par-per-view broadcast of the year with "Invasion" last weekend featuring a Heavyweight tournament and two belt defenses. Despite some advance setbacks such as a third title defense with John Alessio being cancelled when Alessio injured his hand in UCC in January and Paul Buentello being forced to pull out of the tournament due to kidney stones the show went off well.
Few were surprised Jimmy Ambriz retained his Heavyweight belt over Johnathan Ivey but the upset of the night came at the opposite end of the weight divisions. Javier Vasquez tore his ACL ten seconds into the defense of his Lightweight belt and still took it to a decision, pulling out a loss but what had to be the most exciting fight of the night by fending off submission after submission. The most impact is going to come out of rAw’s alleged misunderstanding of the amount of rounds in the Vasconcelos/Carter fight which resulted in Vasconcelos’s corner throwing in the towel, setting up Shonie to take on Jhun for Romi Aram’s vacated Welterweight belt next month. As if this wasn’t enough Bobby Hoffman, candidate for world record on most amount of tournaments, won yet another Heavyweight tournament by defeating first Sam Sotello only 23 seconds into round 2 when he Sotello injured his shoulder on Hoffman’s takedown before Hoffman went on the fight Jason Godsey, himself the winner of the alternate fight who got his shot when Seth Petruzelli became injured in his first fight in the tournament. Even the "dark matches" or undercard matches were exciting with the Jackson’s Gladiojitsu team which includes Keith Jardine and Diego Sanchez going 3-0 for the night.

Salt Lake City, NV — Jennifer Howe defeated Amanda Buckner to gain the Women’s Championship title while Tim Kennedy and Cruz Chacon are bound for Hawaii in May for the Extreme Challenge/SuperBrawl Middleweight tournament finals after an exciting night by the lake. With four round 1 endings, three round 2s and only one decision there wasn’t much controversy in this short night but the action was well worth the ticket.

Howe going after Buckner

Although most fighters are dominant in the mount and many have good stand-up Kennedy won the tournament not only with his skills at both but mainly with his use of side mount position where he would isolate one of his opponent’s arms and then give them the choice whether to stop his elbow or knee to their head with the other. Jason Miller was the only fighter who managed to take Kennedy past round 2 and although many thought he put on the third best performance in the tournament his face showed the effects of Kennedy’s side control when it was all over.
Cruz, on the other hand, had two of the scariest wins with his first round opponent Griffen Reynaud’s knee injury shocking the crowd and then his second round opponent Eddy Rolon not fully recovering from his knock out before trying to stand ala Scott Morris from UFC2.
When the two met in the finals they set the record for the night on most amount of stand-ups with Kennedy seemingly taking Cruz down at will and finally getting a rear full mount position over a face-down Cruz where he rained down shots until referee Matt Hughes stopped the fight.
The surprise of the night came with the Jennifer Howe/Amanda Buckner fight when both women known for their jiu-jitsu skills kept this fight almost all jab boxing, not even utilizing the clinch as much expected. Amanda came out more aggressive, blackening one of Jennifer’s eyes and seemingly stunning her until Jennifer came alive and used her reach advantage to pick up the win. This fight was first announced as a TKO due to Hughes’ intervention when Buckner was on the way to the canvas but was later reported a KO.

There’s an old saying in hockey that goes; I went to watch a fight and a hockey game broke out. Dennis Hallman used a similar adage with the aptly named Rock N’ Rumble, as a live band played throughout the night giving the event a rock concert atmosphere. The intimate Black Lake Grange played host to the nights festivities as a host of newcomers battled it out in a number of one sided affairs, with only one bout going more than 2 minutes! With the concert being the main attraction, only five bouts were scheduled, with local youngster Shane Davis capping off the evening’s action with an impressive a rear naked choke victory against veteran Carl Pope.